Intuition

My blogs are getting far and few between one, because I don't really think anyone reads them, and two b/c I don't have too much to say. I love reading other blogs though. Those of you who blog for the purpose of keeping in contact with friends and family. My family doesn't get into the whole blog thing and my mom thinks it's dangerous to use the internet for anything but google and email!
BUT... I have a story that I found interesting so I'll share. My 2nd graders are really getting into the whole community thing and writing about pictures they draw, or is it drawing about what they write? Anyhoo, today as a class we wrote a friendly letter to a pretend friend living in another country. Our focus was to describe America to this "friend" and get him/her excited about the pretend visit to our country for the holidays. Well, we brainstormed things we love about living in America and things that are important to them. They said the usual things like playing video games, reading tons of books, going to the movies....etc. Then we brought up the election and how our country just elected our first "brown president". Now, keep in mind I have ONE black girl in my class, 2 Asian kids, and the rest are white, white, white. So, they got on this discussion about whether or not we should write "black", "brown", or "African American". My black girl turns to the class and says 'I'm African American". My Autism boy shouts back, you;re brown. ANother kids goes, "no, no, no...you don't call them brown, they are 'black'. Then she turns to me and says- "I am black, right"? and I respond with "O- you a black dude" and she says, "no I'm a Black dudette". Then my intuitive boy says, yes- you are black, but we SHOULD say African American. To which my Autism kid says under his breath, but loud enough for all to hear "Well, I'm lloking at her and she looks brown to me"! So we decide that we should write in our letter that we just elected our first African American president, Barack Obama. Now, I happen to be a huge Obama fan, so I spice it up a bit by adding that we made history.....blah blah blah. Now it's time for each student to write and illustrate his or her favorite part about living in America, or what the "friend" can expect to see during the holidays, etc. My PC boy who suggested we say African Americans did a most fabulous illustration of a brown man (who truly looked like Obama) standing at a podium with a flag behind him and intermixed a bunch of white and brown circles gathered in front of President Obama! I love it! He suggested that both groups of people should respect the President. I happen to agree!